HTML Made Easy

HTML Made Easy

Or Punctuation for Computers!

You, too, can write HTML (which stands for HyperText Markup Language) but you just don't know it yet! HTML uses "bracket codes" to tell computers how to format a page. Just take a look at this table:


Carriage return (line break)...............<br>
Start a new paragraph after this text......<p>
Horizontal line across the page here.......<hr>
.......................................................................
Put this text in center of page............<center>
(Stop putting text in center)..............</center>
.......................................................................
Put this text in bold print................<b>
Stop putting this text in bold print.......</b>
.......................................................................
Underline this text........................<u>
Stop underlining text......................</u>
.......................................................................
Put this text in italics...................<i>
Stop putting text in italics...............</i>
.......................................................................
Make this text a REALLY large headline.....<h1>
Stop making text a REALLY large headling...</h1>
.......................................................................
Make this text a LARGE headline............<h2>
Stop making text a LARGE headline..........</h2>
......................................................................
Make this text a MEDIUM headline...........<h3>
Stop making this text a MEDIUM headline....</h3>
......................................................................
Make this text a SMALL headline............<h4>
Stop making this text a SMALL headline.....</h4>
.......................................................................
Display this text EXACTLY AS SPACED ......<pre>
Stop showing text EXACTLY AS SPACED ......</pre>
........................................................................
NOTE: The <pre> command can be used to create tables where the spacing is
reproduced exactly.......................................................
.........................................................................
The <a>....</a> is used for links.

To add a clickable link to a page you would use:

<pre><a href="http://www.clever.net/cam/maf.html">Margaret's Home Page</a></pre>

where http://www.clever.net/cam/maf.html is the address of the page 
you want to link to (that is,the URL).

It is possible to link to mail addresses as well.  

For example a link to my mailing address would be:

<a href="mailto:mafincan@wt.net">email Margaret</a>

Do not to indent to start a new paragraph when using HTML.

Also, you have to have either [br] or [p] after EACH line where you would normally hit a carriage return (on a word processor). If you forget [br] or [p] you will get one long, uninterrupted line of text that is difficult to read. It will look like this and you will not be pleased. It will go on and on and on forever. You will be heartily tired of it by the time you get to the end of the huge, over-sized "paragraph". You might even go to sleep before you get to the very, very end! Oh, no. You are not getting off that easy! This incredibly long "paragraph" is an illustration of your worst HTML nightmare. If you can avoid run-on "paragraphs", you will be just fine, most likely. Yes, it will take a while to get in the habit of making sure that [br] or [p] is at the end of every line where you want a "line break" but if you can avoid long, long "paragraphs" or endless blocks of text like this one then it will be worth it!

The second thing to remember is that you give commands like this:

bold face type for text looks like this: bold face type for text.

<center>This text is now in the center of your page.</center> looks like this: This text is now in the center of your page.

The only commands which you don't "toggle on" and "toggle off" are:


<br>.....<p>.....<hr>.....

Everything else must be told when to start and stop. The "stop" command is the same as the "start" command but it has the slash at the beginning.

Here is how to start and end a typical Web page:

<html> <head> <title>Web Page Title</title></head><body bgcolor=#FFFFFF> <hr> <center> <h2>Web Page Title</h2> </center> <hr> (Put the content of the page here.) <hr> <center>Back to <a href="maf.html#top">Search Engines</a></center> <hr> This Page Under Construction Last Modified: 5/18/2001 <hr> </body> </html>

Back to the Reference Cyberlibrarian

Back to Search Engines

This Page Under Construction
Last Modified: 5/18/2001